LSU engineering graduate helping design NASA spacesuit

So much has changed in space exploration over the past few decades—bigger rockets, privately owned aerospace companies, Mars missions—but one thing that hasn’t changed much is the NASA spacesuit. While small modifications have been made to the 1976 suit over the past 15 years, 2023 will see a completely new suit that is not only more inclusive but also as high-tech as they come

According to an LSU news release, LSU mechanical engineering graduate Kevin Murrell of Gonzales is a mechanical design engineer contracted through Jacobs Engineering Group at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where he has been working with a team of about 100 NASA engineers since 2019 to design the new xEMU, or Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit, spacesuit. The xEMU suit will serve as a prototype if aerospace companies choose to design their spacesuits using it. Since 2008, NASA has spent $420 million on spacesuit development.

“This has been an ongoing effort for decades,” Murrell says. “The new xEMU suit has more features, more mobility, more battery power, better visibility, and allows for longer spacewalks.”

The original EMU suit came in only one size, which meant that if an astronaut did not fit the suit, they could not exit the International Space Station to do a spacewalk or lunar exploration. One of the requirements for the suit under the Exploration Extravehicular Activity Services contract is that it fit a broad range of sizes.

Two companies, Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace, were announced this summer as being eligible to compete in providing new spacesuits for NASA to use in microgravity and on the lunar surface. Read more about Murrell’s work on the new spacesuits from LSU.

This story originally appeared in an Aug. 25 issue of Daily Report. To keep up with Baton Rouge business and politics, subscribe to the free Daily Report e-newsletter here.